Friday, 9 January 2015

New Year Plant Hunt 2015: the results

Creeping Buttercup, Buxton, Derbyshire 1/1/2015
Image: J. Mortin

Drumroll please - BSBI is delighted to publish the results of this year's New Year Plant Hunt. Tim and Ryan emerged from yesterday's marathon data analysis session, exhausted and gasping for tea - but Ian, Sarah and I were waiting for them! We couldn't wait to hear their analysis and then all start working out how to communicate the results to everyone. Cue several hours of "does the data support that point" and "is recorder bias at play on this one?" - nobody flounced off when their ideas were challenged, but a fly on the wall would have been reaching for the earmuffs at a few points yesterday evening...So, we have lovingly (if noisily) crafted this report for you, and for our friends in the media who are keen to hear these amazing results:

Botanist & Gorse, Leicester, 4/1/2015
Image: L. Marsh

The results are in for BSBI’s fourth New Year Plant
Hunt, when wildflower enthusiasts across Britain and Ireland head out over the
holidays and see what is in bloom in their local patch. We combine this
traditional midwinter activity with C21st technology and use Twitter, Facebook and
email to share photographs and observations, and we encourage people to get in
touch if they need help in identifying a plant.

Dr Tim Rich, Plant Hunt co-founder, said “With 2014 being
the warmest year on record, we were expecting lots of wild flowers still to be in
bloom over New Year. What took us all by
surprise was quite how many people were happy to go out and look for them!” Plant lovers spent up to three hours between
1st and 4th January hunting for wild plants in flower and we’d like to say a
huge thank you to all of them for contributing to these amazing results:

A total of 2,908 records of plants in flower from across
Britain and Ireland.

We received 143 lists - around half of them contained 20 or
more plants in flower.

Tim said “368 species in flower is an unprecedented 15% of
the flowering plants in Britain and Ireland: the books suggest there should only be 20-30 species
in flower. The most commonly recorded plants
were Daisy and Dandelion, each of which was recorded in 115 lists (75%). However,
only 12 (3%) species were recorded in more than half of the lists, and most
were only rarely found in flower: 160
(43%) species were only recorded in flower once, and 60 (16%) were only
recorded twice. It was quite varied from site to site.”

“As expected, the
mild south and west of Britain had the highest numbers of species still in
flower, but we also had lists of over 50 species from the east and north of
England, and an amazing 39 flowering in Edinburgh. We thought that the snow and hard frosts
before Christmas would have finished most flowering in the north but it seems
not to be the case (tough lot, those northerners!). In terms of absolute
numbers, Cardiff won (it was joint winner last year) with 71 species in flower
and Cornwall came second with 70 species in flower”.

Corn Marigold, VC59 3/1/2015
Image: P. Gately

Ryan Clark, who co-ordinated the New Year Plant Hunt this
year, said “It was astonishing to see so many records flooding in, from
Guernsey to the Moray Firth and Norfolk to Donegal. 21 of the lists were from Ireland, and these
had consistently high numbers of plants in flower too, with an average of
about 20 – this was almost exactly on a par with Britain. The highest count in Ireland was 40 species
flowering on Bull Island, in Dublin Bay, by BSBI’s Irish Officer Maria Long and
fellow botanists. The west of Ireland also fared well, with Strawberry Tree in
flower near Killarney, Co. Kerry”.

Sometimes you need to zoom in!
Dock, Donegal 4/1/2015
Image: O. Duffy

Ryan analysed the records to see which plants were growing
where. He said “As in previous years, it was clear that urban areas tended to
have more species in flower than rural areas. This is to be expected: there are
more sheltered corners and disturbed ground with wild flowers with a short life
cycle and high seed production (you won’t catch us calling them weeds!) and
plants spreading out from gardens. “

“Around one third of the plants in flower proved to be species
not native to Britain and Ireland, which may have escaped from gardens or
cultivation. Plants from warmer climates may be continuing to flower in the
mild autumn weather before winter frosts knock them back.”

Primrose, Wye NNR, 1/1/2015
Image: A. Gay

Do the numbers of plants in flower this New Year indicate an
early spring? Tim and Ryan concluded “Sadly, there does not seem to be any real
indication of an early spring, although a few spring-flowering species like Lesser
Celandine were quite widely recorded. Only 5 % of the species recorded were
spring-flowering native specialists, such as Dog's Mercury, and half of the
records of spring flowering plants were from just three species: Hazel, Lesser Celandine
and Primrose.”

Ryan Clark, New Year Plant Hunt Co-ordinator
Image courtesy R. Clark

Dr Sarah Whild, who co-founded the Plant Hunt with Tim in
2012, said “The total of 368 wild plants in flower this year is much higher
than the 222 recorded over the 2014 New Year, mainly due to the increase in the
number of botanists looking for them! I’m delighted to see the Plant Hunt
blossoming and even inspiring other countries to follow suit, with The Netherlands
launching their own Plant Hunt this year!”

So, that's this year's report and I'm handing over now to Ryan, our amazing New Year Plant Hunt Co-ordinator. And here are Tim's comments on Ryan, verbatim: "he is a hero!" and "fantastic work!".Ryan will be blogging on these pages - probably at 2pm today - so you can read his thoughts on these results. Don't forget that you can use the comments box below to ask Ryan any questions. And thanks again to all of you who took part.

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About Me

I'm the Communications Officer for the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland. Since June 2012, I've been telling everyone how BSBI can help you understand more about wild plants. And how much fun it is hanging around with botanists!